its time

WILLOW Magazine (a service of the Willow Creek Association) published an article recently titled 15 Innovations the Church Should Embrace Now! Item #5 is "Multi-Purpose Church Buildings - Doing ministry in the marketplace." And I quote,

Jesus didn't hang out at synagogues. He hung out at wells. Wells were natural gathering places in ancient culture. Coffeehouses are postmodern wells. That's why National Community Church, in Washington, DC, built a coffeehouse on Capitol Hill instead of a church building - to create a marketplace environment where the church and community could cross paths. Less than a year after it opened, "Ebenezers" [see pic below] was rated the #2 coffeehouse in the metro DC area by AOL CityGuide 2007. They serve 600+ customers seven days a week. Instead of asking people to come to them, the church is going to the people.

"Coffeehouses are postmodern wells." How I wish I could say I penned that one.

I'm assuming by now you have a well-established third place space in your church building. Good for you. You've probably seen your congregation grow in both size and relationships. You may even be asking, "What now?" How about adding a third place on the other side of town? Third place space is supposed to be accessible, and yours just is not accessible across town. Silence the little voice that immediately screams, "We could never do that!" and just consider it for a few moments.

(If your church is growing and you're considering a satellite campus, consider it for a few extra moments.)

On paper it could be a not-for-profit outreach ministry of your church; you don't have to start a new business. That said, in brick-and-mortar it should look like a new business: a hip coffee shop, not an outreach mission ... except on Sunday mornings. National Community Church uses Ebenezer's ("the #2 coffeehouse in the metro DC area") as a satellite campus on Sunday mornings. Imagine! Broadcasting the gospel into the unchurched's favorite café.

But if it worked for Jesus ...

build? now?

Pastor Nelson Searcy of The Journey Church in NYC recently spoke with Outreach magazine about five common growth barriers churches deal with.

(Before we go any further, I would like to reiterate that these are barriers growing churches need to take care to overcome. These are not five steps to turn a ministry into a megachurch.)

The number one barrier, and easiest to overlook, Searcy argues, is space.

"As church leaders, we love full rooms, so we say, 'Pack 'em in, there's (sic) still a few seats!' But the truth is that when a room reaches 70 percent of its seating capacity, it's full. Period."

I've always heard that number closer to 80 percent, but as you grow past the 70 percent mark it's time to start considering options. A Christian Post article goes on to cite Searcy noting that most churches face growth barriers when attendance reaches 65, 125, 250, 500 and 1000.

Where is your church? Seem to be stuck at about 250 people every weekend? It might be time to start calculating what percentage of your worship space is full at each service. The reason this is the most overlooked barrier to church growth is because you're probably not even thinking about a building project when you hit 70 to 80 percent capacity, and because it may seem silly to add a service or knock down a wall with 20 percent of your seating still available.

But people need space, especially new visitors. It may not be true that "if you build it, they will come," but it certainly is true that if you don't - they won't.

eat your heart out, without walls international

Need more ministry space? Scared to death at the idea of a building project? Worried about the finances? You could do what Cornerstone Community Church in California has decided to do and just ... not build.

Enter the Tierra Rejada Building Project.

Yup. Cornerstone has purchased almost 140 acres that will feature a 5000-seat, outdoor, garden-style amphitheater that will be used for weekend services instead of a traditional, indoor auditorium.

Other site features include:

> Eternity Bible College. 1000-seat (indoor) multi-purpose auditorium, classroom buildings, a maintenance building, restrooms, admin/library, and a 300-seat chapel.
> Community Athletic Fields. About five acres for two community fields.
> Children's Hunger Fund (CHF). Ten acres would house about 100,000 sq ft of (indoor) space for the CHF international headquarters.
> Finally, 80 acres (nearly 60% of the site) will remain undeveloped.

Why? Well, for one, it's California and you can do that kind of thing in California. Cornerstone has a short list of reasons, elaborated upon on the website, but it comes down to vision.

The heart of Cornerstone Community Church is to care for some of the material needs of the poor. Their leadership did not feel that the cost involved in a building project (not to mention there wasn't a lot of room in town for a building of the size they would need) was congruent with the mission and vision of their ministry.

We talk a lot about how your church facility should reflect and support your vision and your calling. If your vision is to care for children, you need a good children's wing. If your vision is to foster families, you need space for family-oriented activities. If your vision is to shelter and care for the homeless in the midwest, you need a big kitchen and room for cots. If your vision is to feed and clothe the poor on the west coast ... maybe you don't need a building at all.

Mark Beeson at Innovate 07

Granger Community Church recently hosted their annual Innovate conference in Indiana. You can watch each of the sessions online, and I highly recommend doing so. You can get to the list here.

I watched three yesterday. The second session was Pastor Mark Beeson on That's Going to Leave a Mark. He talked about how churches can make the greatest impact on visitors and spent some time talking about ... you guessed it ... the church facility.

Some quotes I caught:

"Every person matters, so we try to create space. ... We designed this space (their church building) for the simple reason that we're trying to reach people who don't understand how much they matter, and they don't go to church. We built this facility that looks like safe territory for normal people."

(Talking about their children's ministry space downstairs:) "The architecture communicates a message. You don't need a guide. ... The architecture screams, when you go downstairs, 'These people must love kids!'"

He talked about how the excellece of your ministry space communicates value to visitors. The design and the maintenance of your building tell people who haven't yet met your greeters or passed the peace, that you value them and you want them to be there.

He goes on to talk about the importance of women's restrooms. Because as young couples become young families it is usually the woman who decides its time to take the kids to church and sets out to find a good one. I think a lot of this was Mark being funny, but I can say there are places that I avoid (or would if I could) because of the state of the women's restroom.

new from barna

Barna has released a new study titled What Teenagers Look for in a Church. You shouldn't even be reading this because you should have demolished the left key on your mouse trying to get to get to that study. But since you are still reading I'll oblige.

Encouragement:
"The (second) most common activity (among teenagers) is attending a worship service at a church. ... Compared to American adults, teenagers are more likely to report engagement in corporate forms of worship and spiritual expression."

Kick in the pants:
"However, the research raises caution that teenagers' prodigious appetites for spiritual activity may be waning."

Wake-up call:
"One out of every four teenagers (26%) had learned something about their faith or spirituality online in the last six months. ... Furthermore, one-sixth of teenagers (16%) and one-quarter of born again teens (25%) said they had 'a spiritual experience' online where they worshipped or connected with God." (Emphasis mine.)

Direction for designing youth space:
"The most common elements sought by young people were 'to worship or make a connection with God' (45% described this as very important) and 'to better understand what I believe' (42%)."

We know that for unchurched teenagers and young adults, the most important part of your facility is third place space. It's not lost on those teenagers who regularly attend worship services, either; the new Barna report goes on to reveal that about one-third of them say they want to spend time with close friends at church.

For those teenagers who are coming regularly, your student ministry space needs to be a place they can connect with God and learn about their faith. Sharing worship space with a traditional adult congregation won't inspire them, and sharing classroom or teaching space with the children's ministry will not keep them focused.

options for growing churches

Is your church growing? (If it is, you're doing better than 70 to 80% of the churches in America.) If so, what are you planning to do about it?

The auto-pilot response is, "Build." Expand the worship space, add-on and renovate, or ditch the existing facility and start all over. All good ideas, but a new one is beginning to take hold: broadcast.

Currently, seven of the top ten fastest-growing churches, according to Outreach Magazine's latest report, are multi-site campuses. Some stretch across town, others stretch across the country.

For the present, going multi-site may be a good solution for small churches that are growing quickly and may not have all the funds for a new or dramatically expanded facility. You only have to give your current worship space a face lift, add better lighting and video capabilities, and establish other campuses. These campuses can be partnering churches, coffee houses, or homes. They can support live worship, or broadcast yours. It seems to be working ... for the present.

I'd be interested to see demographics on people who attend satellite campuses. If anyone knows where that report is, please let me know. I'm guessing it's mostly people who are 30 or older, or in their 20's with a Christian background. I'm guessing, that is, that there are not a lot of millennials taking a keen interest.

Dr. Ed Stetzer, director of research for LifeWay, considers multi-sites "the new normal," according to a Christian Post article. I wonder.

Because we know that the emerging generation, the millennials, the digital natives, etc. are bored to death with broadcast. They haven't been raised on teevee like most of those attending multi-site campuses; they have been raising each other on the Web. They don't trust superstar personalities, they're not interested in being passive spectators, and they already don't like church/Christians. Can you imagine taking one of these kids to a satellite campus? I'm guessing she'd make some comment like, "I can do this at home, except my couch is more comfortable and I don't have to deal with these people."

The Church needs to look forward. Right now teenagers are difficult to understand and next to impossible to work with, but they're taking over. You are going to have to hand off the torch at some point. Your ministry is going to depend on their offerings. Your church will be trying to reach into their community and into their culture.

Multi-site campuses are working for now, and that's great. Keep them running as long as they're bringing people to Christ. Be watching the horizon, though, so when this generation finally swallows yours whole the Church can be ready to move into interactive, relationship-based meetings.

communication is key

Communication is key. You know that, but how much are you communicating and how often?

We talk a lot about staying relevant and catching up with the culture in order to reach people. We're trying to teach you to speak their language and reach out into a growing unchurched population. A recent survey of American evangelicals, though, reminds us that it's similarly important to make sure your congregation knows what is going on.

What concerns American evangelicals today?

The National Association of Evangelicals recently surveyed its leadership and found little concern centered on national politics or the war in Iraq. Culture concerns ... were listed as top issues of concern to the evangelical leaders representing about 30 million members.

Everyone knows that our culture is in the middle of an amazing upheaval, and it's kind of scary.

So as you get excited about adding a third place space and a youth center to your facility, explain what that means to your staff and ministry leaders - so they are equipped to talk about it and encourage their head volunteers, who will be equipped to talk about it and encourage the volunteers who work with them. Share the cool stuff you're learning about Joe Meyer's spaces of belonging, or the digital age that is dawning, or the benefits of third place.

If you reach into your communities long enough, you will eventually catch at least a few people. They will come in for coffee or to drop off their teenagers to play basketball, and they will bring with them their worldviews. They will come with the culture that is a greater concern to many evangelicals than who the next president is going to be. Is your congregation ready?

personal space

Joe Meyers, in The Search to Belong, discusses four kinds of space: public, social, personal and intimate. The former three are appropriate for some element of a ministry, and we talk a lot about how to make sure your church is providing for and allowing people to find belonging in each of those three spaces. On the other hand, as David Zimmerman illustrates in entry six of nine on A Visitor's Perspective, you want to allow people to protect their own intimate space as well.

David has been talking about your church from a visitor's perspective, and today he's talking about the awkward moment wherein one has to find a seat. He brings up the 80% rule.

The 80% rule states that when a building has reached 80% of capacity it is full.

It's because we all have personal (or "intimate" if you're sticking with Meyers-vernacular) space and we want to keep it - especially if we're strangers somewhere.

Church growth presents all kinds of blessings and challenges, but it's good to remember that when your worship space gets to be about 75% full, you really need to start making plans for expanding your space or adding another service. Ministry leaders like to see a packed sanctuary every weekend - it makes us feel like we're doing something right - but your visitors will be uncomfortable and may not come back.

So monitor. Assign someone to count heads. If you have 250 seats, 187 people is all it takes to start making people feel uncomfortable. If you have 500 seats, it's 375 people.